Apparatus for checking and verifying records



Dec. 18, 1934.

L. E. BROUG HAM APPARATUS FOR CHECKING AND VERIFYING RECORDS Filed Oct. 5, 1931 i 2 Sheets-Sheet l Dec. 18, 1934. L.E. BROUGHAM 1,934,516

I APPARATUS FOR CHECKING AND VERIFYING RECORDS Filed Oct. 5, 1931 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 jfiTBrougha h Patented Dec. 18, 1934 1,984,516

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE APPARATUS FOR CHECKING AND VEBIFYING RECORDS Leslie Ernest Brougham, Purley, England, assignor to The Accounting & Tabulating Corporation of Gt. Britain Limited, London, England Application October 3, 1981, Serial No. 566,707 In Great Britain October 10, 1980 3 Claims. (Cl. '13-51) This invention relates to apparatus for checkally effected by electrical conductors in the form ing and verifying record cards. of wipers which complete a circuit through per- In prder that the records on a record card or forations in the card where perforations occur, the like may be readily checked a method of and cause particular circuits to be energized. producing record cards has been derived where- Where the sensing is effected on a card which 5 in the records are produced in a plurality of is stationary it is usual to employ what are known recording stages, for example in producing peras sensing plungers which are applied to the card forated record cards perforations are produced and in passing through cause the selective actuin two punching stages, each stage being efation of operating parts of the machine.

fected in a punching machine in which the oper- As the invention is particularly concerned with 10 ator produced perforations differentially on the the automatic separation of correct and incorcard according to data in an original entry book, rect cards comprising perforations produced in the perforations in the one stage being comcomplementary stages, the invention will now plementary to the perforations in the other stage. be described with reference to the treatment of By such method of producing records the ocrecord cards in which the records are in the 15 currence of an error by way of incorrect punchform of perforations by way of example only, ing or the omission to punch in one of the stages and in a particular embodiment of the invenwould be immediately obvious on a sight of the tion the application to machines operating on card as the incorrect record would be incomstationary cards will be described.

plete. To this end the sensing pins are formed for 2 Means employed for carrying out the method differential movement when sensing a record, the may consist of two normal punching machines, differential movement being utilized to designate one or both of which has an adjustable feed for errors. the cards, one machine punching a normal per- In one form, where the perforations are of foration and the other an offset but partly overmodified circular or of 8 or elongated shape as 25 lapping perforation so that the outline of the hereinbefore referred to, a convenient form for a complete record is roughly like the figure 8 or pin is of rectangular form as regards the body so an elongated hole, whereas if a punching on as to pass through the normal predetermined either machine has not found complementary shape of a complete perforation, the rectangular operation on the other machine there will be body portion having a reduced end of suitable 30 left a normal circular hole which at once identisize or shape to pass through those perforations fies an error in one or the other punching stage. which have not found a complementary part, and

The object of the present invention is to dclodge in an intermediate position to thereby indivise means for mechanically identifying the incate an error.

correct cards. Preferably indication of the error is effected 35 Broadly the invention consists in apparatus through a reciprocating testing plate which is for checking individual records formed in a pluadapted to co-operate with the pins, obstruction rality of stages on record cards or the like, which of the movement of this pla causing the i apparatus comprises sensing means for the rection.

ords and means whereby an indication is given As hereinbefore indicated, h the p 40 when said sensing means register with an inferred indication of the error is by means of complete record. distinctive signal cards, the lodgment of a pin in According to a preferred form of the invenintermediate position being effected to obstruct tion the indication which is given when an inthe testing plate and to thereby cause the operacorrect card is encountered consists in inserting tion of apparatus for feeding one of such signal 45 distinctive signal cards, e. g., coloured cards, cards adjacent to the erroneous card. adjacent to incorrect cards whereby out of the A preferred construction for feeding distinctive stack of cards it will be quite simple to identify signal cards is shown by way of example of a prethose which are erroneous. ferred embodiment in the accompanying draw- The sensing means may be applied to machines ings in which:- 50 in which sensing is effected when a card is mov- Fig. 1 is an elevation of the testing machine ing but in the preferred form is applied to mapartly broken away to show clearly the means for chines in which the sensing occurs when the feeding signal cards. card is stationary. Fig. 2 is a plan of Fig. l.

5 In the former type of machine sensing is usu- Fig. 3 is an enlarged detail view in section of part of the pin box showing the differentially movable sensing pins and the testing plate co-operating therewith.

Fig. 4 is an enlarged detail perspective view of the connecting rod and latching mechanism shown in Fig. 1.

Pig. 5 is a top view of a properly perforated, correct data indication in a card, showing the method of cooperation with a sensing pin and Fig. 6 is a perspective view of three sensing pins showing the method of cooperation with unperforated card, incorrectly perforated card, and properly perforated card, as indicated in Fig. 3.

In the drawings like reference numerals desig nate the same or similar parts.

The data perforations are made in two steps to produce a key-hole type of perforation, as shown in Fig. 5. Each card is punched twice, preferably by two different operators, and on two different machines. One machine produces one circular perforation, as shown in Fig. 5, and the other machine produces the adjacent and partly overlapping perforation to complete the correct perforation. Obviously, if either operator strikes a different punch in a given column from the other operator, the holes will be in different locations in the card and will not overlap as indicated. Accordingly, when the sensing pins are applied to the holes, two of the small members 41, as shown, will pass through the hole in the card, as indicated for the middle sensing pin in Fig. 6, and for the third sensing pin from the left in Fig. 3, but the larger portion 42 rests upon an imperiorated portion of the card, thus producing the desired indication.

It may be noted that, if both perforations are omitted, or if both perforations are wrongly perforated in the same spot, the card upon test by the machine herein disclosed will not be indicated as incorrect. However, experience has shown that such coincidences are so rare as to be negligible and are very much less frequent than incorrect recording of the records to be transcribed to the punched card, and for that reason may be disregarded.

In the drawings the pin box shaft 1, which is normally rotated by means of a motor not shown (but can be also manually operated by the hand wheel HW) is provided with two eccentrics one of which actuates the card feed to the pin box, and the other the pin box itself, the arm 2 being actuated by one eccentric to oscillate the pin box vertically and the arm 3 being oscillated by the other eccentric to rock a shaft 4 through the agency of an arm 5, and in turn rock an arm 6 which actuates a picker for a card magazine A, for holding record cards to be analyzed. Thus the cards are fed synchronously with the movements of the pin box.

An arm 7 is also actuated from the shaft 1 from a third eccentric and this arm 7 is connected by a pin 8 to a connecting rod 9 guided over a pin 10 fixed to the frame of the machine, the rod 9 being connected to a short arm 11 fixed to a rocker shaft 12 by which a picker arm 13 is operated to feed cards from a second magazine B at the other end of the machine, as errors are detected by the analyzer as hereafter described, these cards being preferably of distinctive colour.

On the shaft 1 is a cam 14 which rocks a lever 15 carried on a rotatable shaft 16, this shaft being mounted in bearings in the frame of the machine, and being provided with an arm 17 connected by a spring 18 to a part of the frame of the machine,

so that the lever 15 is thereby held against the cam 14.

Secured to the shaft 16 is a further lever 15a which carries a key member 19, pivoted on the lever 15a at 20 and including a forked arm 21 which straddles a pin 22 carried by an arm 23 fixed to a rocker shaft 24, to which also is fixed arms 25, which are connected to a testing plate 26 carried by the pin box for reciprocation transversely of the sensing pins.

The cam 14 is recessed or otherwise formed so that at the correct time in the cycle the lever 15 and thereby the shaft 16 and the lever 15a are rocked under the action of the spring 18.

It will be understood that the levers 15, 15a, and the cam 14 are suitably arranged in spaced relation transversely of the machine.

When the arm 15 is pulled by the spring 18 into the recess of the cam 14, the consequent rocking of the lever 15a raises the key member 19 bodily from the pivot 20. At this time a pin 27 carried by the key member is hearing on a ledge 28 carried by the frame of the machine. The upward movement from the pivot 20 impressed by the lever 15a permits the arm 23 to rock under influence of a spring 29 pulling the plate 26 into testing operation. During this movement, the key member 19 though hinging at 20 is really fulcrumed at 27 and rocks in a clockwise direction the arm 23 moving anti-clockwise.

All the perforations in the card being tested being correct, the plate will be moved to the right (as viewed in the drawings). If the plate cannot move the arm 23 is also held, the key member is then pushed at the point 20 and turns about the pin 22 which then becomes its fulcrum, thereby lifting the key member upwardly-the pin 27 being raised from the ledge 28.

The key member 19 normally controls a latch 30 pivoted on the pin 8 so that as the latch moves forward to the right with the arm 7, under operation from the eccentric, it is rocked by the key member 19 engaging the head 31 of the latch, but if the key member is lifted it does not hold the latch, then under influence of a spring 32 connecting an arm 33 of the latch to the eccentric arm 7, the latch is pulled downwardly and a catch 34 of the latch falls into a notch 35 of the connecting rod 9.

whenthe catch 34 is in the notch 35, the connecting rod 9 is rigidly connected through the catch 34, notch 35 and pin 8 to the eccentric arm 7 so that on this occasion movement of the arm 7 to the left causes the connecting rod 9 to move, thereby actuating the card picker at the other end of the machine, through the arm 13. The key member 19 is restored to its initial position by the cam 14 rocking the shaft 16 and thereby the end of the lever 15a downwardly as the cam recess for the arm 15 passes the latter.

In operation so long as the key member 19 is held on the ledge 28, the latch 30 oscillates freely longitudinally, being attached to the arm 7, by the pin 8 which passes through a slot 36 in the end of the connecting rod 9, which latter remains stationary. Thus the key member 19 retains control of the head 31 of the latch, whilst there are no errors in the cards by remaining disposed in the path of the latch head 31 and towards the end of each right ing the latch head so as to hold the catch 34 out of the notch 35 of the connecting rod 9. On the return stroke, the latch head 31 is drawn away from the key member 19 so that the catch 34 is hand stroke, engage permitted to slide on the edge of the connecting rod 9 under the pressure of the spring 32.

When, however, an error is detected by the plate 26 not moving towards the end of the forward stroke, then the key member 19 is lifted bodily from the latch by turning and sliding about the pin 22; the latch then, under tension from the spring 32 catches the connecting rod 9 and connects the rod to the arm 7 so that the picker controlled by the arm 13 is actuated on the return stroke and a signal card is thereby fed at the correct momentadjacent the erroneous card into a main card receiving compartment C into which the erroneous card has already been delivered from the sensing box. By this arrangement the operation of the signal card mechanism is caused immediately.

The pin box shaft 1 may be driven from a motor carried in the machine frame through gearing which is also employed to operate continuously the feed rolls FR and skip rolls SR associated with each magazine A and B, the main receiving compartment C being disposed between the two magazines A and B, so that the cards therefrom are fed towards and into the said receiving compartment.

'The testing plate 26 moves transversely. of spring pressed sensing pins 3'1 carried by the pin box in the analyzer, the pin box being reciprocated vertically by the eccentric arm 2. The sensing pins are preferably of rectangular form as regards the body and recessed or notched at 38 and 39, leaving between the recesses a protuberance or abutment 40, see Fig. 3.

It will be understood that the sensing pins may be spring pressed by means of separate spring influenced plungers disposed above the pins as an individual unit.

The sensing ends of the pins are reduced, forming sensing heads 41 and shoulders 42.

When a card 43 is disposed by the picker actuated by the arms 6, between the usual perforated plates 44 and 45, being positioned therein by a vertically reciprocating stop 46, the pin box descends on the card and where holes are correct and complete, the shoulders of the pins pass through, the fall of the pin being arrested by a stop 47 engaging the bottom plate of the hasket or frame, guiding the sensing pins.

Where there are no holes in the card, the sensing .pins merely rest thereon by their heads 41.

In either of these positions the recesses on the sensing pins are aligned with the testing plate 26, thus where a correct hole is found the recess 39 of the pins is aligned, and where there is no hole, the recess 38 is aligned, consequently there is no obstruction in either case to the'movement of the plate in a testing operation, and the latch member 30 is held from catchin the connecting rod 9.

When, however, an erroneous perforation is found in the card, the pin head 41 only enters and the pin, by its shoulder 42 rests on the card. In this middle position of the pin the abutment 40 carried thereby is in alignment with the testing plate 26 and is effective to obstruct the movement thereof during the operation of the cam 14 on the lever 15. Then, as hereinbefore explained, the key member 19 loses control of the latch which then catches the connecting rod 9 and actuates the picker at the other end of the machine, through the agency of the arm 18 and a signal card is delivered on to the feed rollers FR associated with the magazine B, and thence in to the main compartment C which will have already received the erroneous card from the analyzer, the erroneous card being identified by its contiguity to its signal card.

The invention may also be applied to cards which have individual records consisting of the customary circular perforations, each of which is punched, however, in two complementary stages, punching in the one stage producing a part of the perforation and punching in the second stage completing the perforation. In the event, therefore, of a record being incomplete it will be appreciated that the portion of the card which is normally removed by one or other of the punching stages will remain.

It will be understood that the invention is not limited particularly to the embodiment or embodiments shown and described, but that which is claimed as the invention is more particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

What I claim is:

1. Apparatus for checking and verifying individual perforated records produced by a pinrality of sequential recording stages on record cards comprising in combination a plurality of three position pins respectively adapted to cooperate with said record, each pin being adapted to rest on the top of the card in the absence of perforations in an upper position, to pass through the card to a lower position through a complete record perforation, and to stop in an intermediate position upon an incomplete record perforation, and means cooperating with said plurality of pins to cause an indication to be given when any one pin halts in an intermediate position.

2. Apparatus for checking and verifying individual perforated record cards formed in a plurality of sequential recording stages on record cards comprising analyzing mechanism including reciprocable pins adapted to assume a plurality of different positions according as the point in the card under the respective pins is imperforate, properly perforated, or incompletely perforated, a testing plate cooperating with said pins, means'for moving said testing plate in synehronism with the reciprocation of said sensing pins. means for impeding the reciprocation of said testing plate when a museum a record having an incompletely perforated data point thereon, and means cooperating therewith for causing an indication when the movement of said testing plate is impeded.

3. Apparatus for checking a'nd'verifying individual perforated record cards formed in a plurality of recording stages on record cards comprising the tion of a reciprocable sensing pin box including displaceable sensing pins adapted to assume one of a plurality of different positions as the card under the respective pins is imperforate, properly perforated, or incompletely perforated, said pins having reduced sensing ends and shoulders adapting the pin to be held in an elevated position when the digit position thereunder is imperforate, to pass entirely through the card when the digit position thereunder is properly perforated and to be arrested by said shoulder when the digit position is improperly perforated. and means coop ratingwithsaidpinstocauseanindicationtobe given when an improperly perforated card is sensed. LEI-IE ERNEST BROUGHAM. 

